- Rent is tested unit by unit. eLEND evaluates each unit individually, and the Form 1025 appraisal gives a market rent for each one. A lease above market counts only up to a cap: 110% of market at Kiavi, 115% at MAXEX, 120% at eLEND, 125% at FundLoans.
- Leverage often drops 5 points. Pennymac, Arch, eLEND and one Plaza program cap 2–4 unit purchases at 75%, against 80% on a house; Acra and Forward Lending allow 80%; Civic, RCN, Lima One and FundLoans publish no unit-count cut.
- Vacancy is easy on a purchase and rationed on a refinance. FundLoans and Civic allow one vacant unit on a 2–4 unit refinance; Civic counts unleased units at 90% of market rent.
- Three and four units can cost more than two. Acra's October 29, 2026 rate sheet charges nothing extra for a duplex but up to 1 point for a 3–4 unit property at 75–80% LTV.
- No unit can be yours. eLEND bars the borrower from occupying any unit, and at five units most programs hand you to a separate multifamily product.
A DSCR loan on a 2–4 unit property works like one on a single-family rental, with one difference behind most of the rules: the income comes from several leases instead of one. The lender settles on a qualifying rent for each unit, adds them up and divides by one monthly payment, the PITIA: principal and interest plus property taxes, insurance and HOA dues. If you're looking for a DSCR loan on a duplex, triplex or fourplex, the questions that change your loan are how each unit's rent gets counted, what happens to an empty unit, and how much leverage the lender gives up for the extra doors. These are business-purpose loans: you can't live in any of the units.
How lenders count rent on a duplex, triplex or fourplex
Start with the unit, not the building. eLEND's DSCR matrix, revised September 16, 2026, says monthly gross rent is to be evaluated for each unit individually. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide asks for the gross rent of each unit in a two- to four-unit property, and the Form 1025 appraisal gives the appraiser's market rent unit by unit. For each one, the lender compares the lease with that market rent and applies its rule. The default almost everywhere is the lower of the two. Where lenders differ is how far they'll go above it:
| Lender (document date) | Default | Lease above market | Market above lease |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kiavi (DSCR page) | Lower of lease and 110% of market rent | Counts up to 110% of market | Lease governs |
| MAXEX (May 15, 2026) | Lower of lease and market | Up to 115% of market, with 2 months of receipts | Lease governs |
| eLEND (September 16, 2026) | Lower of lease and market | Up to 120% of market, with 3 months of receipts | Up to 120% of the lease |
| FundLoans (August 26, 2026) | Lower of lease and market | Up to 125% of market, with 2 months of receipts | Up to 125% of the lease, no proof needed |
| Civic (rental page) | Leased units: lower of in-place and market rent | Market rent governs | Lease governs |
| Acra Platinum (October 2, 2026) | Greater of market rent and actual rent | Actual rent, with 2 months of receipts | Market rent |
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eLEND's own example shows how the cap works on the market side: a $1,100 lease with a $1,500 market rent qualifies at $1,320, which is 120% of the lease. Run that rule across four units and the building's qualifying rent can land well above the sum of its leases, or below it, depending on which units are under-rented.
New leases, month-to-month tenants and rent control
- New leases: Newfi's DSCR matrix (August 3, 2026) doesn't accept leases the buyer signs up before a purchase closes. FundLoans accepts a lease signed within 30 days of application if you document the first month's rent and the security deposit.
- Month-to-month: eLEND and FundLoans want leases of at least 12 months that may then roll to month-to-month. Plaza's DSCR Investor Solutions 2 program (January 13, 2026) wants two months of rent receipts for a month-to-month unit, or it treats the unit as vacant. Homebridge's DSCR Plus guidelines (July 20, 2026) reject expired leases and at-will tenancies outright.
- Rent control and subsidies: eLEND counts a unit under rent control or a housing subsidy at its current contract rent, whatever the market says.
Practical upshot: before you buy or refinance, line up a signed lease, the last two or three months of deposits, and the market rent you expect for every unit. The unit with a below-market lease and the unit with a tenant paying in cash are the ones that pull the ratio down.
Vacant units: allowed on a purchase, rationed on a refinance
Buyers get the benefit of the doubt. FundLoans lets a purchase close vacant with no leases, using the appraiser's market rents. eLEND uses market rent with no vacancy factor on a vacant purchase, and Plaza's program 2 allows vacant or unleased purchases without an LTV cut. Refinances are different, because the lender expects a seasoned owner to have tenants:
| Lender | Rule | How the vacant unit counts |
|---|---|---|
| FundLoans | One vacant unit allowed if you show it's actively marketed for rent | 100% of market rent |
| Civic | One unit of a 2–4 unit refinance may be vacant | 90% of market rent |
| Plaza (program 2) | If any unit is vacant or unleased, max LTV drops 5 points on a rate-and-term refinance and 10 on a cash-out | Not published |
| eLEND | Vacant property, or no lease obtained: 70% max LTV | Market rent from the appraisal |
| Acra | Vacant property: 700 credit, 1.00 DSCR, 6 months of reserves, 70% max under $1 million; cash-out needs 1.15 DSCR, 60% max and 15 months of ownership | Not published |
| Pennymac, Homebridge | Vacant properties not eligible for refinance (Pennymac allows recently renovated ones) | Not applicable |
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If one unit is empty and you're planning a cash-out, it's usually cheaper to lease it first than to take a 10-point haircut on the whole building's leverage.
Leverage: 75% is the common 2–4 unit cap
| Lender (document date) | Single-family purchase | 2–4 unit purchase | 2–4 unit cash-out |
|---|---|---|---|
| eLEND (September 16, 2026) | 80% | 75% | 70% |
| Pennymac (October 22, 2026) | 80% at 720+, up to $1 million | 75% | 75% or less |
| Arch Mortgage Funding (September 2025) | 80% | 75% | 70% |
| Plaza program 2 (January 13, 2026) | 80% at 700+ | 75% at 680+ | 70% |
| Acra (October 23, 2026) | 85% at 720+, up to $1.5 million | 80% | Not published separately |
| Forward Lending core DSCR (May 11, 2026) | 85% at 720+ | 80% | Not published separately |
| FundLoans, Civic, RCN, Lima One | 80% | 80%, no unit-count cut published | 75% |
| Fannie Mae conventional, for contrast (April 1, 2026 matrix) | 85% | 75% | 70% |
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On a $640,000 fourplex, the gap between 75% and 80% is $32,000 of extra down payment. The other levers, from credit tiers to loan size, are in our guide to DSCR down payments. Credit grids rarely split by unit count; Plaza's program 2 is the exception we found, reaching 75% on a 2–4 unit at 680 while its one-unit grid needs 700 for 80%. Location can matter too: eLEND doesn't take 2–4 unit properties in Illinois at all.
Loan size and price: what the extra units cost
- Minimum loans don't change with unit count: $70,000 at RCN, $85,000 at Lima One, $100,000 at Plaza, Arch, Acra and Easy Street, $125,000 at Pennymac and Homebridge, $150,000 at FundLoans.
- Maximums don't shrink either in the documents we read. Plaza's 2–4 unit grid runs to $3 million, the same as its one-unit grid. eLEND caps every DSCR loan at $1 million.
- Tiny units can disqualify a building: Forward Lending, MAXEX and Plaza reject 2–4 unit properties with units under 400 square feet.
- Pricing is where three and four units show up. Acra's October 29, 2026 DSCR rate sheet adds nothing for a 2-unit property, but charges a 3–4 unit property 0.250 points at 60–65% LTV, rising to 1.000 at 75–80%. Forward Lending (June 19, 2026) and LoanStream (May 15, 2026) charge 3–4 units 0.250 and duplexes nothing. Spring EQ's sheet for October 30, 2026 charges all 2–4 unit properties 0.500–0.750 points.
A point is 1% of the loan, so on a $512,000 fourplex loan Acra's top adjustment is $5,120, either paid at closing or absorbed into a higher rate. DSCR loans aren't bound by the conforming loan limits that cap Fannie Mae loans, but those limits explain why bigger buildings drift toward DSCR lending. FHFA's 2026 baseline limits are $832,750 for one unit, $1,066,250 for two, $1,288,800 for three and $1,601,750 for four.
The appraisal: Form 1025 does the rent work
A one-unit rental gets a Form 1004 appraisal plus a 1007 rent schedule. A 2–4 unit property gets Fannie Mae Form 1025, the Small Residential Income Property Appraisal Report, which builds the rent analysis in. Fannie Mae requires the income approach to value on two- to four-unit properties (Selling Guide B4-1.3-10), with the comparable rental and sales data and the gross rent multiplier calculation in the report. On the form you'll find:
- A description of each unit: rooms, bedrooms, baths and living area.
- A grid of three comparable rentals supporting the market rent opinion.
- A rent schedule with each unit's lease dates, actual rent, market rent and the utilities included in the rent.
- A sales grid showing each comparable's gross monthly rent, gross rent multiplier, price per unit, per room and per bedroom.
- The income approach: total gross monthly rent times the gross rent multiplier.
The gross rent multiplier is price divided by monthly rent. If comparable fourplexes sold at about 107 times gross monthly rent, $6,000 of market rent indicates $642,000 by the income approach. Give the appraiser a rent roll, copies of every lease and a list of which utilities you pay, since an owner-paid water or heat bill changes which rentals are true comparables. Some lenders add a review: Homebridge requires a desk review (CDA) on every 2–4 unit property. State-by-state fees for the 1025 are listed in our closing costs breakdown.
Reserves: sized by loan amount, not by unit count
We found no DSCR lender that asks for more months of reserves because a building has more units. Pennymac wants 3 months of PITIA up to $500,000 and 6 months from $500,001 to $2 million. Plaza's program 2 uses the same 3, 6 and 12-month tiers for one-unit and 2–4 unit properties. FundLoans and eLEND ask for 6 months on the subject property, and 12 for first-time investors. Champions' 1–4 unit DSCR program asks for none on loans up to $1.5 million. Two things do add cost on a multi-unit building: vacancy, which pushes Acra's reserve requirement to 6 months, and rent-loss insurance, which FundLoans and Plaza require to cover 6 months.
Conventional rules are heavier, for contrast. Fannie Mae requires 6 months of reserves on an investment property purchase plus 2% to 6% of the balances on your other financed properties (B3-4.1-01), and it counts only 75% of gross rent as net rental income (B3-3.8-02).
Worked example: one fourplex, two rulebooks
You're buying a $640,000 fourplex. Three units are leased and one is empty. The appraiser puts market rent at $1,500 for each unit. Taxes run $850 a month and insurance $425, and the rate is an illustrative 7.375% over 30 years, which a 2025 HMDA analysis found was the median rate on 30-year investor loans. You've collected three months of rent receipts from unit 3. Here's how two published rulebooks count the same building:
| Unit | Lease | 1025 market rent | Civic-style count | eLEND-style count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,450 | $1,500 | $1,450 | $1,500 |
| 2 | $1,250 | $1,500 | $1,250 | $1,500 (exactly 120% of the lease) |
| 3 | $1,700 | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,700 (3 months of receipts) |
| 4 | Vacant | $1,500 | $1,350 | $1,500 |
| Total | $4,400 | $6,000 | $5,550 | $6,200 |
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Both pass: Civic's minimum is 1.05 and eLEND's is above 1.00. The building that counts lower borrows more, because one lender cuts leverage for the extra units and the other doesn't. Your down payment is $128,000 under the first rulebook and $160,000 under the second. Neither loan is limited by rent. At 1.05, $5,550 of rent would carry about $581,000; at 1.00, $6,200 would carry about $713,000. LTV is the binding limit in both cases.
Now refinance a year later with unit 4 still empty. Civic allows one vacant unit and keeps counting it at $1,350. FundLoans allows one vacant unit at full market rent if you can show it's listed. Plaza's program 2 takes 10 points off a cash-out because a unit is unleased. Leasing unit 4 before you apply removes the issue at every lender.
Five or more units is a different loan
Most DSCR programs written for 1–4 unit homes stop at four; Pennymac and Arch list buildings over four units as ineligible. Beyond that you're in small-multifamily lending, with tighter terms. RCN Capital's long-term rental loan covers 1–4 family homes at up to 80% LTV with a 660 credit score, while its 5–9 unit product needs 700, tops out at 70% (65% on cash-out) and lends $150,000 to $1.5 million. Champions' 5–8 unit DSCR program runs $400,000 to $2 million at 75% on a purchase, counts vacant units at 75% of market rent and allows no more than two. Some lenders stretch the residential box: Lima One's rental loan covers 1 to 9 units and Easy Street's 1 to 10.